Getting Started

Follow these steps to get your first gig up and running with bandleader.app.

You're not starting from scratch

Every new band is seeded with a sample songbook, a sample setlist, a sample gig, and a sample rehearsal — all clearly labeled. Feel free to explore them, or open them up and edit them in place to learn how each page works. When you're ready to start fresh, click "Remove sample data" on the Dashboard.

Step 1: Build Your Repertoire

Your Repertoire is your band's master song catalog — every song you know, with its title, artist, tags, and any custom info (key, charts, etc.) you want to track. It's shared across your whole band, so you only ever enter a song's details once.

Navigate to Repertoire from the admin sidebar.
Add songs one at a time, or use Import CSV to bulk-add your existing song list.
Add tags (e.g. "90s", "Ballad", "High Energy") so your audience can filter songs on the audience page later.

Step 2: Organize Songbooks

Songbooks are curated playlists pulled from your repertoire — for example, "Full Repertoire", "Karaoke Hits", or "Acoustic Set". A songbook is what you actually assign to a gig.

Go to Songbooks and create one or more songbooks.
Open a songbook and click "Add Song" to pull songs in from your repertoire (or create a brand-new song on the spot).
Optionally set per-songbook pricing, organize songs into audience-facing groups (e.g. "Easy", "Duets", "90s" for a karaoke songbook), or mark songs as "New".

For more details, see the full Songbooks documentation.

Step 3: Create Your First Gig

A "gig" is an event where you can enable interactive features for your audience. Navigate to the Gigs page to get started.

Click "Create Gig".
Give your gig a name and a date.
Go through the configuration options to enable features like Song Requests and Karaoke. For each feature, you must assign one of the songbooks you created in the previous step.
If you have connected Stripe in your settings, you can also configure prices for paid features.

For a detailed breakdown of every option, check out the Gigs documentation.

Step 4: Activate the Gig

Once a gig is created, you must make it "Active" for it to appear on your main audience page (e.g., bandleader.app/your-band-id).

On the Gigs page, find the gig you want to go live with.
Click the "Set Active" button on its card. Only one gig can be active at a time.

Step 5: Share with Your Audience

Your main audience page is now live! You can share the URL or use the QR Code button on the audience page itself to make it easy for fans to join in.

Each gig also has its own unique, permanent URL that you can get from the "Share" option on the gig card. This is useful for sharing a link to a future gig without changing your currently active one.

Step 6: Run the Show

During the gig, you can manage everything in real-time from the audience page using the Admin Controls. Switch to the "Admin" view to reorder the queue, advance singers, and toggle features on and off.

Learn more about these powerful tools in the Admin Controls documentation.

Beyond the First Gig

Once you're comfortable with the basics, here's where to go next:

Rehearsals: Schedule rehearsals, collect RSVPs, and run them from a setlist.
Members & Subs: Invite the rest of your band, and bring in substitute musicians when needed.
Availability: See who's free at a glance, and connect Google Calendar so gigs and rehearsals show up on your personal calendar automatically.
Analytics: After a few gigs, check your earnings, top songs, top singers, and audience ratings.